San Diego News

Sacramento, California - Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced the release of four annual crime reports, which provide law enforcement agencies and the public with statewide data on crime statistics in their communities.

The Attorney General is also making raw data from the Crime in California report easily and widely available in an effort to promote transparency and encourage researchers, academics and interested parties to further analyze the data. The information can be accessed via the Attorney General’s OpenJustice website, which shares key findings in its data stories and publishes raw data on its data portal from the California Department of Justice’s statewide repository of criminal justice datasets.

This March, Attorney General Harris and Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin introduced Assembly Bill 2524, which would convert Crime in California and other criminal justice annual reports published by the California Department of Justice into a set of key findings, data visualizations, and downloadable digital datasets that will be updated quarterly on the Attorney General’s OpenJustice Web portal.

The violent & property crime rates per 100,000 population increased from 2014 to 2015; the 2015 rates are 2.9% and 0.4% lower than 2010 (respectively)

From 2010 to 2015, the robbery and aggravated assault rates decreased 13.2% and 1.1%, respectively

The arrest rate decreased by 4.5% from 2014 to 2015; a total of 1,158,812 arrests in the state in 2015; the lowest since 1969 (1,212,845 arrests in 2014)

Misdemeanor Driving Under the Influence arrests decreased for the fifth year in a row

Adult felony arrest rates decreased by approximately 29% (predominantly burglary and drug offenses) and adult misdemeanor rates increased by 10% (also predominantly burglary and drug offenses) most likely due to the reclassification of prop 47 crimes

There was an 8.1% increase in all aggravated assaults and 15.7% increase in aggravated assaults with a firearm from 2014 to 2015

Assaults on peace officers increased by 10% from 2014 to 2015

Homicides in California 2015 contains information related to homicide, including demographic data on victims, persons arrested for homicide, persons sentenced to death, peace officers feloniously killed in the line of duty, and justifiable homicides. Highlights from 2015:

The homicide rate increased in 2015 (from 4.4 to 4.8 per 100,000); a total of 1,861 homicides in the state

Over the past decade the homicide rate ranged from a high of 6.9 in 2006 to last year’s low of 4.4

In 2015, 82.8% of homicide victims were male and 17.2% were female

The largest proportion of victims has consistently been Hispanic

There were 163 justifiable homicides reported in 2015, with 130 committed by a peace officer and 33 committed by a private citizen

Firearms are used in over 70% of homicides in 2015; there was a 9.2% increase in the number of homicides with a firearm compared to 2014

Hate Crime in California 2015 reports statistics on hate crimes that occurred in California during 2015. Highlights from 2015:

Hate crime events increased 10.4% from 758 in 2014 to 837 in 2015; the vast majority of this increase is attributed to an uptick in events involving religious bias

Anti-black motivation hate crimes continue to the most common hate crime, accounting for 31.9% (3,443) of all hate crime events since 2006.

Juvenile Justice in California 2015 provides insight into the juvenile justice process by reporting the number of arrests, referrals to probation departments, petitions filed, and dispositions for juveniles tried in juvenile and adult courts. Highlights from 2015:

Juvenile arrests decreased for the seventh year in a row and are at the lowest levels ever

There were 71,923 juvenile arrests reported by law enforcement agencies in 2015, down 17% from 2014

In 2015 more than half of the juvenile (58.2%) arrests were for a misdemeanor offense and nearly a third (29.7%) were arrested for a felony offense

Among those arrested in 2015, 53% were Hispanic/Latino, 22% were white, and 19% were Black